


how to play the rules

by redpaint



Series: risk of ruin [2]
Category: Formula 1 RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Crimes & Criminals, Crossdressing, Gambling, M/M, Partners in Crime, Trust Issues, the product of a childhood spent watching oceans 11 casino royale and 21
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-05
Updated: 2020-08-08
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:40:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22569511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redpaint/pseuds/redpaint
Summary: “Look at us. We look good together,” Daniel says, voice getting low and dark like it only ever did when they were alone. Charles hates how much he’s thought about that voice, hates that Daniel is right. They do look good together, even though a team has two points of failure instead of one, and should be uglier.The casino AU sequel, where Daniel and Charles decide to cheat the house together.
Relationships: Charles Leclerc/Daniel Ricciardo
Series: risk of ruin [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1623733
Comments: 33
Kudos: 100





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Set about a year after risk of ruin.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 1, in which Charles hears a familiar voice.

The bar at the Fairmont is as busy as always, the sea of idle conversation drowning out the drab live piano music. A warm wind gusts off the water and across the terrace, blowing the satiny end of Charles’s deep blue slip dress around his ankles. He resents the whole getup, even though he knows he looks good, knows he’s drawing the appreciative eye of more than a few people around the bar. He wishes he could have just met this guy in his hotel room and saved himself the trouble of dressing up. It’s especially annoying because the guy is twenty, no, thirty minutes late, and every additional minute makes his Manhattan taste more like rejection.

Forty-five minutes and he’s ready to leave. Fuck this guy; Toto sounds like a fake name anyway. He pushes away his glass, ringed with lipgloss stains. He’s turning to leave when he hears a familiar voice, loud enough to carry over the din.

“No way, mate, no way. What happened was that—” He loses the voice under the clinking glasses and the crash of a particularly large wave on the rocks below the terrace.

Charles steels himself against the knot in his stomach and the wave of hope and dread that inevitably follows it. He was meant to be over this. He’d had enough of getting distracted while dealing because someone halfway across the room had Daniel’s same lively accent and inability to modulate their volume. It’s better to just leave now and save the disappointment of searching the crowd for him. It’s not as though Daniel would want to see him anyway. The thousands in his bank account made sure of that.

He heads to the exit, the loud clicking of his high heels punctuating his intention to leave. He’s almost to the door when someone grabs his wrist. He whips around, ready to treat whatever drunk asshole thinks they can touch him with a sharp slap, but when he sees Daniel, he freezes up.

“Enchanté,” Daniel says, apparently unbothered by how ridiculous he sounds. It should be criminal, how good he looks, with a proper beard and a seersucker shirt with nearly half the buttons undone. Just one look and Charles can feel his self-preservation instincts slipping, lured in again with lust and regret. It’s exactly why he had to break this off in the first place. Daniel is a hazard.

“What are you doing here?” Charles snaps. It’s more comfortable to go on the offensive.

“Business. But I can’t say I didn’t hope I’d see you.” They can’t do this here. There are too many variables out of Charles’s control. Daniel already has the advantage of surprise.

“If you’re looking for your money back I don’t have it,” Charles says, extricating himself from Daniel’s grasp. 

“Who said that’s what I’m looking for?” Daniel tilts his head, openly raking his eyes down Charles’s body. He can’t be serious. Maybe he’s more of a masochist than he ever let on.

Charles shuts all emotion out, goes for the kill. “Can you not take a hint? Jesus, I thought you were smart.”

“The house always wins? Yeah, that was cute. Does getting stood up feeling like winning to you?”

Charles grips his phone until his knuckles turn white. “Fuck you. You don’t know me.”

Daniel puts up his hands defensively. “Sorry, I just don’t like seeing a pretty face so sad. I wouldn’t blame you if you wanted back in.”

Charles looks around. No one’s watching them yet, but they will be soon if they keep standing here and arguing. Daniel just can’t help but attract attention, can he? Charles folds his arms in front of his chest, over the thin fabric. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”

“What, you think I’d hurt ya?”

“Is that what I said?”

Daniel smiles, of all things. “You’re always holding back on me Charles. That’s how I knew you’d leave eventually. All part of the calculated risk.” It’s bullshit, it has to be, but it doesn’t stop Daniel from looking smug. Charles can feel the tension rising in his body, and he wishes it was anger. No one pushes back like Daniel does. They all just let him walk over them, whether in beat-up sneakers or sharp high heels.

They’re at Daniel’s hotel room in ten minutes flat. Daniel’s hand doesn’t move from the small of Charles’s back the whole way there, promising and possessive, shepherding him into the suite with casual insistence.

There’s a mirror on the wall in the entryway, and Daniel sidles up behind him, grasps his jaw and guides his chin so he has to stare at their reflection. Daniel’s other hand slides over Charles’s hip and up his chest, the feeling of it through his dress sending goosebumps down his arms. “Look at us. We look good together,” Daniel says, voice getting low and dark like it only ever did when they were alone. Charles hates how much he’s thought about that voice, hates that Daniel is right. They _do_ look good together, even though a team has two points of failure instead of one, and should be uglier.

“There is no us,” Charles says instinctively. It’s hard to believe, even harder to hear because Daniel chooses that moment to slip his thumb into Charles’s mouth. Charles leans into it, runs his tongue along the pad of Daniel’s finger. With Daniel, it’s as though he can’t stop himself, always wanting to show off, keep that attention on him a little longer, even when it means giving up a modicum of control, even when it means admitting that the attention _means_ something to him.

Daniel slides his thumb deeper and twists Charles’s head around so they can look at each other properly, instead of through the glass. “You sure about that, babe?” Daniel says, the cocky bastard. “Didn’t take much to get you back.” Charles can’t reply, but he tries to affect his most unimpressed look, even as he has his lips wrapped around the base of Daniel’s finger. He won’t give Daniel the satisfaction of thinking he’s won. They both know that Charles left this relationship with the upper hand. He won’t surrender it so easily.

Daniel hikes the dress up so he can grind against Charles’s ass. Daniel’s hard, Charles can feel it through his pants. There’s some satisfaction to it, the knowledge that he’s not just being played here, seduced only to be humiliated, left looking like a fool, like Daniel did when Charles walked away with everything. It opens the door wide for vanity, the idea that Daniel still wants him despite what he did, that he’s just that good, that desirable. He drags Daniel’s hand between his legs. Daniel laughs at him. “Oh, so you do want something from me, ice princess. I see.”

They must look obscene, their mirror doubles. They move like ghosts, half-seen in Charles’s peripheral vision. Charles wants to turn to look, but Daniel finally takes his thumb out of his mouth and pushes him in the direction of the bed. Charles is happy to kick off his heels and sink into the mattress, even though his pride protests at Daniel thinking he’d just _go_ like that. He twists around on the bed, ready to pull Daniel down on top of him, but Daniel’s quicker, grabbing him by the hips and pulling him down to the end of the bed like it’s as easy as breathing.

Charles gasps despite himself. His dress is a mess, bunched up around his hips in a way that’s going to require dry-cleaning later. He sits up to try and pull it over his head but Daniel pushes him back down. “That can stay,” he says, before stripping Charles’s underwear off and tossing them to the side. Charles wants to protest; Daniel is still fully dressed, or well, he’s wearing the clothes he was wearing before, his shirt was half-off to begin with. But it leaves Charles feeling vulnerable in an unfamiliar way. He had felt how hard Daniel was for him, he shouldn’t be taking his time with this. He shouldn’t be running his hands up Charles’s thighs with detached appreciation. He should be naked already, revealing everything with just how urgently he wants.

Instead, Daniel runs his fingertips over Charles’s cock, so light that it’s more infuriating than pleasurable. Charles tilts his head back on the mattress and groans. “Did you want something?” Daniel asks, and Charles almost considers leaving, just grabbing his underwear and going home because _fuck_ if he's going to beg. Daniel must see the venom in his look though, because he relents, leaning down to kiss Charles slow and dirty while undoing his pants. His belt buckle clatters against the floor tiles, and then Charles can feel Daniel’s cock against his ass, leaving trails of sticky precome across his skin.

“You really want me, don’t you?” Charles whispers against Daniel’s lips, teasing, as though he doesn’t imagine he could ask it seriously and get Daniel to say yes, yes, I want you, and then revel in not having to say anything in return. Unconditional want. The thought sends a web of heat lightning through him.

Daniel doesn’t respond, just tucks his face into Charles’s neck and rocks his hips down, making them both moan. Charles, impatient, spits into his own hand and reaches between them to stroke himself. It’s sweet relief after all of Daniel’s teasing, even sweeter when he feels his knuckles grazing over Daniel’s length as he goes, teasing back, daring Daniel to take over or move Charles’s hand to his own cock or both.

It’s spooky, how Daniel almost reads his mind. He bats Charles’s hand away and squeezes them both in one tanned hand, slick with his own spit and their pre. Charles wants more, wants Daniel’s mouth on him, overwhelming and insistent and driving him inexorably over the edge. Instead he has to chase the sensation, the angle and friction of Daniel’s grip not quite enough that he can really lose himself. He has to focus hard on the sensations of it, the slip of Daniel’s thumb over the head of his cock, the warmth of Daniel’s breath against his neck.

“Knew you’d come back, knew it,” Daniel says into his skin, and Charles is grateful that Daniel can’t see the look on his face. His poker face is shit, even though he’s tried to train it out of himself. Naked, with Daniel on top of him, he doesn’t think he could hide anything. Daniel’s hand quickens, the rhythm growing erratic. “You’re better than I remembered,” he growls and sucks hard at the base of Charles’s neck, whining through his nose as he comes between them.

Maybe it’s the thought that Daniel was thinking about him, _fantasizing_ about him, even after what he’d done, or maybe it’s just the extra slickness of Daniel’s come, but Charles’s orgasm hits him hard and quick. It leaves him trembling and grateful for Daniel’s grounding weight on top of him, even if they’re kind of gross now.

They clean up without speaking much, but then they both crawl under the sheets as well, facing one another but not touching. Daniel’s silence is disconcerting, so much so that Charles feels compelled to break it himself. “So what are you doing here, really? Did you find someone else to cover for you at the casino?”

Daniel snorts, but it seems a little more bitter than actually amused. “I’ve been working on my own, since—” he stops himself, and Charles feels an unwelcome pang of guilt. “And it’s been good. There’s still money to be made. But now that you’re here I was just thinking—”

“You really want to trust me again, after everything?”

“I don’t have to, I told myself that if I ever saw you again I was going to suggest that we keep it strictly business but I mean,” he gestures to the two of them, naked and still sticky with traces of come.

“I think we’re a little too late for that,” Charles says. He rolls onto his back and looks up at the ceiling. Daniel is too earnest for him, always has been. He needs to take breaks from it or else Daniel might tempt him into revealing things he never intended to.

“Call me a fool but I think we could try it again. I’m better when I know the dealer’s on my side. Hell, I’m lucky to have gotten away with it these last few times, without you at the table—”

Charles doesn’t take his eyes off the ceiling, tracing the uneven texture so he doesn’t have to look back at Daniel. “We can’t do it again.”

“I know you always worried about your job—”

“I quit my job.”

Daniel is quiet for a long moment, so long that Charles has to look over and make sure that he’s not like, crying out or something. Daniel’s looking at him blankly. His stomach sinks. Maybe this just transactional, a fuck in exchange for access to a safe table in the private rooms at the casino. Fuck, Charles, how couldn’t you have seen it coming, this guy is a gambler, always analyzing his options, taking the safest route to maximize reward—

Charles kicks off the sheets. “I’m sorry, this was a mistake. I’ll go. Good luck with,” he waves his hand in Daniel’s general direction, “with everything.”

Daniel stops him with a hand on his shoulder. “Wait,” he says, and he doesn’t sound upset, or even that nervous, just a little unsure. Charles watches him think, considers getting back under the sheets so he feels less exposed. He decides against it. Daniel’s fingers dig into his shoulder when he looks up, the spark of excitement illuminating his smile. “This could actually be brilliant,” he says, and Charles cautions himself against the hope that it stirs in his chest. He hasn’t even agreed to anything yet, probably shouldn’t. He walked away for a reason, but he for the life of him he can’t remember it right now, not when Daniel’s pulling him back into bed, eyes bright and conspiratorial. Charles can blame it on the rush of drinking in Daniel’s seemingly boundless desire, but this was never going to be just about the sex.

Daniel’s smile promises danger, the kind Charles had gotten good at, high stakes, the threat of blood in the cards. “Why do you say that?” he asks, but deep down he knows he’s already sold. Maybe he was meant to be a gambler after all.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 2, in which Charles and Daniel make a plan.

“So how does it work?” Charles says, leaning with his elbows on the counter. Across from him, Daniel is fiddling with stacks of chips, a rainbow of valueless clay.

“Let’s do a little role-play,” Daniel says, wiggling his eyebrows. He looks up from his chips, seemingly satisfied. “I can be the smolderingly handsome gentleman gambler, and you can be the sweet, innocent dealer. Shouldn’t be too hard.”

Charles wants to roll his eyes, but he laughs in spite of himself. Daniel’s jokes aren’t even that funny, he just has the infuriating quality of making them seem that way through confidence alone. Still, Daniel’s right. It’s been a few months but years of muscle memory kick in quick. He grabs the deck of cards and shuffles through it without even thinking. “What’s your game?”

Daniel winks. “Dealer’s choice.”

“Place your bet then, _sir_ ”

Daniel slides pushes over an uneven pile of €5 chips, then looks up, his face the model of pure innocence.

Charles eyes the chips warily, but still deals out the cards for blackjack. He tells himself the choice is one made out of habit and not of nostalgia. The cards skid across the marble countertop, but Daniel catches his before they fall. Charles has spent a lot of time watching Daniel’s hands working, lying, cheating, but the flash of his lightning-quick reflexes is still impressive. He looks down at the cards. His upcard is 6, while Daniel’s showing a thirteen.

“Hit me,” Daniel says, injecting it with all the sleaze he can muster, like he never could when they did this at the casino, when they played different roles, that of perfect strangers.

Charles does roll his eyes now, because he doesn’t actually have to be professional and he can’t keep letting Daniel get away with this stuff, but still deals out another card. It’s a ten. Daniel shoves back from the counter, the suddenness of it making Charles jump.

“God, this is bullshit,” Daniel says. He sounds legitimately pissed, even though he made the wrong call, fucked up basic strategy.

Daniel reaches for his chips, and it activates Charles’s years of training. “Don’t touch the—” He starts, but it’s too late, Daniel tosses the stack of chips back across the counter, sending them skittering to the floor. His change is startling, so unlike the lively, sunny person who welcomed Charles into his apartment a few hours before.

Charles slams his palm down on a chip, catching it before it rolls off the counter. “So what’s the catch here? Your grand plan is just to be a fucking dick?”

It’s unsettling, too, to watch Daniel morph back into his usual self. It leaves Charles wondering if Daniel is taking off a disguise or slipping it back on. Still, one second Daniel is scowling and the next he’s beaming, and then he holds up his hand. There’s a black chip in his palm, held there so effortlessly that it appears to be floating. Daniel weaves it through his fingers in one smooth, practiced motion, then leans across the counter to offer it to Charles. “Ta-da,” he says with a flourish, looking pleased as pleased could be.

Charles accepts the chip, turns it over and over again in his hand. “This came from your bet?”

“Uh huh, tucked under the fives,” Daniel says, letting Charles work it out himself.

“So if you had won the hand—”

“You wouldn’t know I had made the big bet until it was too late. You’ve got a good eye, Charlie. I knew you were meant to be on my side of the table.”

“I could be making a lot of money on the other side, helping casinos stop guys like you,” Charles says, ignoring how warm the compliment makes him feel. He’s not meant to be anywhere with Daniel. Not next to him at green velvet tables, and certainly not in the kitchen of Daniel’s tenth floor London apartment. But Daniel can be so _persuasive_.

Daniel laughs, as though the idea is really that ridiculous. “You wouldn’t. This is too much fun. Besides, this way you get better coworkers.”

Charles sets the black chip on the counter with an audible click and slides it over to Daniel. “Yeah, I’ll have a coworker who’s going to end up blackballed if he tries this trick for real. What are you thinking, grabbing chips like that? They’re going to figure you out pretty quick.”

“No one questions a messy drunk. You didn’t.”

“But you still can’t do that more than once at a table. Even if they just think you’re mad they’ll ask you to leave.”

The look Daniel gives him makes him feel a little stupid. It raises his hackles, makes him consider the logistics of booking a last minute flight back to Monaco. “Do you know how many casinos there are in London?” Daniel asks.

A lot. There’s a fucking _lot_. Daniel flicks the chip back across the counter. “Anyway, it’s a strategy of last resort. I play like I’ve always played, hide the big bets until I win, and if I lose a hand and we have to cut and run, so be it. There will be another glorious den of iniquity down the road that’ll take us.”

Daniel talks about it like it’s easy, like it’s not an incredibly dangerous game of chance, a roulette wheel where landing on red could mean losing a lot more than a bet. “And the card mucking? What are you going to do when the dealer isn’t in on it?”

“Well that’s where you come in, mon cherie. We need a little distraction.”

“You’re joking,” Charles says, feeling his face heat up. He didn’t come all the way here to be a _honeypot_. He won’t sit back and look pretty while Daniel gambles with their safety.

“I’m not saying you have to shake your tits in the dealer’s face, sunshine. With all those years of dealing, you must be a good player. And I’ve seen you when you make an effort to be charming. Nobody can keep their eyes off you.”

Charles hesitates. He’s not naïve, he knows Daniel is stroking his ego, but the prospect of being essential to the con, instead of just observing and letting it happen makes his pulse spike. “And you’ll be—”

“Drunk but boring. Spotlight’s on you, sweetheart. You play clean and make them love you.”

Charles runs his fingers across the black chip in front of him. If they do this right, €100 will be dirt to them. He can feel Daniel watching him, waiting for an answer. “Okay. But if they catch you I’ve never seen you before in my life.”

Daniel smiles, as though Charles had been joking. “Deal.”

⁂

They drive north in Daniel’s Trans-Am, towards the out-of-the-way rural casinos that will serve as their practice ground. The car only plays cassettes, and Charles can only tolerate an hour of Daniel’s ‘80s hard rock tape collection before he shuts off the stereo entirely. Maybe it hurts Daniel’s feelings, because he’s unusually quiet. He keeps sneaking glances over at Charles, and patting the steering wheel to the tune of some beat that’s only in his head, but otherwise he’s silent. Charles, for some reason, takes pity on him.

He looks around the cabin like he’s seeing it for the first time again. “Nice car. Is it a ‘74?”

That puts a crack in Daniel’s reticence pretty quick. He slides his hand over the dash in a mockery of a caress. “‘73. It’s my baby.”

“How do you even get a car like this?”

“I won it in a poker game. Luckiest night of my life.”

Charles snorts. “We both know that you make your own luck.”

“Yeah, but that was the first time I ever tried it,” Daniel says. There’s an unnerving edge of sincerity in his voice that makes Charles sit up straighter in his seat. “I was sweating bullets, I was so sure I was going to lose my grip on the cards and they were going to figure me out. And it was some underground shit too. There weren’t any fancy security cameras to stop them beating the shit out of me right there at the table if I fucked up.”

“But you didn’t.”

“I took the tube there and drove this car home.”

Maybe that’s why Daniel is always so confident that they’ll be fine. He came out of the gate winning, untouchable. The yellow highway lights catch in his curls, crowning him effortlessly golden.

“When was that?” Charles asks.

“Six years ago. You were probably still having your mom cut the crusts off your sandwiches at the time.”

Charles bristles. Daniel probably didn’t mean anything by it, but he’s worked hard to rid himself of the foolishness of youth. He can feel his walls coming back up instinctively. Of course that’s when Daniel decides to get curious.

“So why’d you quit your job? Too boring without me?”

Close enough, not that Charles will ever admit it. Boredom to the point of becoming sloppy, having to have stern talks with Mattia about professionalism. It was easier to live on the remains of his ill-earned money than to spend hours hating himself for waiting for a face that wouldn’t show. “I don’t know. I wanted to do something new, I guess. Already conquered that hill, on to the next one you know?”

Daniel doesn’t look convinced. “And what was your next hill, Sir Edmund Hillary?”

Charles doesn’t know who that is and won’t give Daniel the satisfaction of asking. “Cars, maybe? It’s hard to grow up in Monaco and not like cars. I think I could make a good salesman.” He’s never set foot in a dealership in his life. If he sounds unsure, Daniel doesn’t seem to care.

“I’d buy whatever you were selling.”

“You’re too easy.”

Daniel just reaches across the console and rests his hand on the top of Charles’s thigh. It’s an admonishment, an endearment, a confirmation, a suggestion. Just a little too intimate. Charles’s stomach leaps into his throat for a second.

Daniel grips the steering wheel a little tighter, clear his throat. “Well, I thought about you. After you left. What you were doing, what your life was like.”

_So did I._

Daniel could never have really known what his life was like, not when he made sure to show as little of it as possible, avoided questions, played a part. Not that there was anything bad to hide, just a hollowness that only underscored how disruptive, how seductive Daniel’s scattered appearances were. Daniel spent the last however many years riding the razor’s edge of daring. Charles spent them within a stone’s throw of his childhood home, building fantasies of luxury for strangers, loathing the monotony and craving it all the same.

Charles can tell Daniel is waiting for a response, but anything he could say now feels liable to unravel him entirely. Daniel pushes the car faster on the deserted midnight roads. Billboards for the casino start appearing fifty miles out.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 3: In which they practice

It’s not the Casino de Monte-Carlo, that’s for sure. The casino is tacky in its own way, the low lighting and heavy carpeting making the space feel small, despite all the games being out in one large, open room. Charles arrives at the blackjack table first and sits directly across from the dealer, a young guy in an ill-fitting satin vest. He winks as he sets up his chips, and the poor guy is already blushing. In his walk over to the table he had managed to convince himself that this was a terrible plan, doomed to fail, but now he isn’t so sure. It’s just another kind of seduction, isn’t it? He just needs to make sure he doesn’t fuck up his play, and that Daniel doesn’t get too cocky.

“Slow night?” he asks, looking up at the dealer like he’s the most important person in the world. He’s entertained enough people from the other side of the table to know how to feign interest.

“Seems to be picking up,” the dealer says, stuttering a bit. He’s right; there’s only one other person at the table, an older woman who eyed his dress as he sat down but otherwise appears more than happy to stick quietly to her own cards and glass of whiskey. But the din in the room is growing louder, there are people circulating the room, feeling out the table they want to join. It won’t be just them for long.

Charles orders a vodka soda and plays a few hands, places small, safe bets and reaps the small, safe rewards that come with them. Daniel never drinks when he’s playing, but a little liquid courage makes him feel less obvious when he catches the dealer’s eye and licks along his bottom lip, then smiles like they’re sharing something private. It really is sad that this is his most nerve-wracking conquest yet, a spotty blackjack dealer in middle-of-nowhere England.

He’s so focused on dragging bits of personal information out of the dealer that he doesn’t see Daniel approaching the table. “Well, well, well, aren’t we looking beautiful tonight,” Daniel slurs, sliding into the chair at the end. He sets down his drink and chips with a startling amount of force, garnering a tight, irritated smile from the dealer. Charles has never seen Daniel truly drunk, just high off sex and adrenaline, but the act is convincing. He stifles a laugh as he watches Daniel hyperbolize himself, leaning into the sing-song vowels of his accent and sprawling loose-limbed in his chair. “I’m feeling lucky,” Daniel announces with a split-second wink in Charles’s direction.

It’s hard not to follow Daniel down the path he’s on, play good and proper and sober, because god does it look fun, but the magic here is in the misdirection. Charles gathers himself, keeps his attention on the dealer and his cards, toes the line between friendly chat and more serious flirting. He’s used to rushing through this part, eager to be naked and desired. But this isn’t like all those times on his home turf; there’s the possibility that it could all go wrong, that there’s elements at play that he’s mastered less than animal attraction. It reminds him of the first few times with Daniel.

Daniel, for his part, quiets down, focuses on his cards, spills his drink down his shirt but otherwise attracts as little attention as he can manage. His tricks are so clean that Charles almost forgets that he’s cheating right to their faces. He forces himself not to look for them, flutters his eyelashes at the dealer instead, gets dealt an eleven and doubles down.

⁂

The heavy glass doors groan loud enough that Charles can hear them from around the corner. He’s been waiting, leaned up against the brick exterior of the building, crinkling his dress and wishing that he’d had the foresight to pick up smoking when he was younger. Daniel comes around the corner with his jacket draped over one shoulder and the sleeves on his shirt rolled up.

Charles expects Daniel to greet him with a “Hey there, superstar,” or something equally unnecessary, but instead Daniel approaches him quietly, stands a few feet away instead of disregarding Charles’s personal space like he always does. Charles slips his phone into his clutch, bathes in the rare silence between them, the space filled up by the dull roar of the highway and the brush of the evening breeze. Did something go wrong after he left? He should have been the one who stayed behind. That’s why they were doing this, wasn’t it? To smooth out the wrinkles before the bets and the danger climbed even higher.

Daniel has one hand stuffed in his pocket, examining the sidewalk. It’s only when he kicks at a pebble, a caricature of disappointment, that Charles realizes that something might be up. He’s usually better at reading situations, but Daniel has a casual way of bouncing between sincerity and irony that makes one almost indistinguishable from the other.

“Everything alright?” He asks, suddenly hyperaware of the sound of his own voice. The breeze picks up, sending goosebumps down his bare arms.

Daniel takes a step forward, looks up at him from under his eyelashes. As though he could ever be bashful. “Ah, you know. Met a beautiful girl in there, but couldn’t find the guts to ask if she wanted to come home with me.”

Charles doesn’t want to go Method or anything, but there’s something a little enticing about getting to play a character when everything isn’t on the line. It reminds him of uncomplicated hook-ups, playing _pick your fantasy_ with someone who wouldn’t expect a text the next day, never mind _trust_ or _loyalty_ or anything like that. It could be simple. He steps closer, until the hem of his skirt brushes Daniel’s leg softly enough that he could blame it on the wind.

“It’s not too late,” he says, and imagines that he could be the pursuer between them. Daniel is warm, so warm, even through his shirt, but maybe Charles’s fingers are just cold from the waiting.

Daniel straightens up a little under his touch. Yeah, that’s better, a bit of the bravado that hooked him back in Monte Carlo.

“My hotel is just down the road,” Daniel says. They checked in hours ago. Maybe Charles can pretend his own bag belongs to Daniel’s absent, duped lover.

The utilitarian chain hotel off the highway isn’t the most romantic place in the world, it doesn’t reek of money like the suites in Monaco do, but the ride up in the elevator still sets his pulse racing. They’ve been sleeping together every night since they crossed paths again, this shouldn’t be that different. Maybe it’s the change of scenery. Maybe it’s the uncertainty of acting, which never made him nervous before. Maybe it’s because Daniel whispering, “I couldn’t take my eyes off you all night,” in his ear feels just a little too good.

Daniel watches from the bed as Charles slips out of his dress and drapes it over the chair in the corner. Charles is in his lap in no time at all. He wants to be close, closer, their thighs and chests touching, kissing with an intensity that threatens to steal his breath. Daniel twirls the delicate chain of Charles’s necklace around his finger, tugs on it a little when Charles pulls away.

“How much did we make?” Charles whispers, rolling his hips down into Daniel’s, watching his face closely, soaking in the naked want. It’s not really about the money, except that it is, except that he thinks he wouldn’t even care if Daniel lost everything after he left the table, as long as Daniel keeps looking at him like this, like he’s some prize that even Daniel, with his special brand of luck, can’t believe he won.

“I don’t know what you mean,” Daniel says archly, kissing along Charles’s collarbone. “Have we met before?”

Charles groans and gently pushes Daniel away by the shoulder. Daniel’s smiling, obviously amused by the roleplay, and that’s all it takes for Charles to realize that he doesn’t actually want to pretend at all.

“Daniel,” he breathes, trying to ground them in reality.

It doesn’t exactly work. Daniel just runs a hand along Charles’s jaw, strokes the bottom of Charles's neck with his thumb, and hums. “Who’s Daniel?”

Charles leans into the touch, even though he thinks it might undermine his attempt to get Daniel to listen and not just volley words around for the fun of it. It would be easy to go along acting out a role, but he wants Daniel to want _him_ , and, more disturbingly, he wants to want Daniel, with his harebrained plans and his unshakeable confidence and the genuine kindness that belies his smirking con-man persona. Any pretense just feels like a distraction.

“Daniel,” Charles says again, more insistent this time. He splays his hand across Daniel’s chest and soaks in the immediacy of his body heat. “I want _you_. Please.”

There’s a terrifying moment before Daniel answers where Charles wonders if he’s crossed an unspoken line. Maybe Daniel just wants the fantasy of first conquest, where he can pretend Charles is still a naive stranger taken in by Daniel’s charms. Maybe he’s foolish to think they can play this game by anything other than Daniel’s rules.

Daniel looks caught off-guard, for once. He hesitates for a moment, then he’s surging up towards Charles, crushing Charles’s hand between their chests in his rush to kiss. Charles gasps into his mouth, and Daniel takes the opportunity to lick into his mouth. It’s hot and demanding and it leaves Charles panting a little even when Daniel pulls away to mutter, “Fuck, yes, okay” against his cheek.

They don’t do romance, couldn’t even if they tried, but Charles feels something more than lust when Daniel flips them over and smiles down at him from above. He looks Charles over, top to bottom, in a way that could be objectifying if it didn’t feel so worshipful.

“I want you too. God, Charles, I want—“ Charles cuts him off with a kiss. Simply knowing is enough. If he hears too much he doesn’t know how he’ll react and he promised himself he would never cry during sex. Daniel’s firm hands squeeze his hips, an affirmation without words, all the better.

Charles knots his fingers in Daniel’s curls like that’s all it would take to hold them together.

They shower together, afterward, too exhausted and fucked-out to do much more than wash and crawl into bed still damp. Daniel shuts off the light, but after several minutes Charles can still hear him shuffling around, trying to get comfortable. Charles should be asleep; the crash of multiple adrenaline highs compounding on one another makes his head throb. But there’s shame creeping up into his throat: how he acted, so desperate for Daniel and not in a way that could just be laughed off as being a dick-drunk mistake. Anything falling short of total devotion stings like rejection, Daniel’s body curled away from his own on the other side of the bed a confirmation that he really should have just kept his mouth shut.

Maybe he’s thinking too loudly, because Daniel flicks on the bedside lamp and turns back to face him, propped up on one arm. Backlit like this, Daniel looks a little older, a little more tired than usual. The ball of anxiety sticks itself in Charles’s throat. He’s been found out, no question. He couldn’t even make it to the big job before falling for his partner. Maybe Daniel would be kind enough not to outwardly pity him.

“So what were you thinking about doing, after London?” Daniel asks, and that’s not the question Charles was expecting at all. Daniel still wants to do London. Okay. Is this what was keeping him up?

Daniel must read the hesitation on his face, because he puts a hand on Charles’s chest to preemptively stop him. “No, you know what? I want to go with you. Once we do London. There, how about that?”

The shame hisses in open defeat. There’s a freedom in his chest when he’s finally able to speak. “I don’t want to go back to Monaco alone,” he says, and his voice still sounds a little small, so he clears it, tries again. “Yeah, I want you to come.”

He imagines moving out of the airless little apartment. They can find somewhere where they can see the water, where they can live on more than lies and close calls.

⁂

They leave the hotel early in the morning and then do two more places in as many nights. It should be disturbing, how quickly Charles gets used to being the one actually doing the deceit, but that’s just part of Daniel being Daniel, isn’t it? He’s like a quick-flowing river, relentlessly carving out a path and sweeping Charles along with him, so assured of his destination that Charles doesn’t need to question it.

Daniel even fucks up, just once, doesn’t properly hide the high-value chip under the cheap ones and gets spotted. But Charles had been sweet-talking the dealer all night, and once he cracks a joke about Daniel needing to either hold his drinks or watch his chips better the suspicion melts away. It’s a feedback loop, really. The more confident Charles becomes, the better he thinks they do. The better he thinks they do, the more charming he is. The more smiles he shoots the dealer, the easier the take is, the better Daniel fucks him after.

And they _are_ doing well, even though they’re keeping the bets small. There’s a duffel bag full of bills peeking out from under the driver’s seat of the Trans-Am. Charles glances at it as they drive, wonders how that much money has come to look so quaint. They could get reckless if they wanted to, through caution to the wind and risk it all at the next out-of-the-way gambling hall they find, but they are running on calculated risk, maximizing their borrowed time.

Daniel takes the local roads back to London to avoid the swarm of cars heading south. Charles leans his head against the window, wraps himself tighter in Daniel’s ratty old sweatshirt, and lets the warm thrum of the engine lull him to sleep. There’s a very late night in their future, and he needs his beauty sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this has taken a million years to post, also sorry if it's a bit disjointed, i definitely wrote this in bits over the course of the past two months and if i don't post it now i never will! next time: London!


	4. Chapter 4

The night has no reason to be going this well. Sure, they planned, and they practiced, but even that felt more haphazard, more human than the kinds of preparation Charles had always seen in heist movies. They mapped out which casinos they would hit, hell, Charles even tried making a half-assed spreadsheet before abandoning it for a handwritten list. Daniel’s scrawl intersects with Charles’s, times and addresses and little notes to keep them on track. _Emergency exit into the alley in the Northwestern corner. No cameras in the high-limit room. Christian’s place._

“Who’s Christian?” Charles had asked, running over the list one last time, his head pillowed on Daniel’s chest. The sun was going down over London, throwing the last rays of golden light into Daniel’s bedroom.

“Just an old friend. Not sure he would want to say hello if we ran into him though.” There was something more there, but Charles didn’t push. He was no stranger to evading tough questions, and besides, he could always draw the truth out later, when Daniel seems more vulnerable to a bit of sweet talking, and when the biggest night of his budding illegitimate career wasn’t hanging over both of their heads.

They’d gotten ready together, side-by-side in the mirror, Charles appreciating the cut of Daniel’s fine white dress shirt over his arms, Daniel sizing up the plunging neckline of Charles’s velvet suit jacket and the scrap of silk that passes for a blouse underneath it. They looked good. They _felt_ good, every doubt practiced away in some casino outside Leeds or fucked away in Daniel’s bed before they leave for the night.

They left the Trans-Am in the garage and caught a taxi to the first place on the list, getting out a few blocks from the casino doors. Daniel’s hand lingered on Charles’s hip before they split up, a bit of unguarded fondness slipping through in the form of a soft, unironic smile. “See you soon, stranger,” he said, shooing Charles off to the entrance with a squeeze and a pat on the ass, always the romantic.

And it all pays off— the practice, the planning, everything. God, does it pay. Charles carries a neat little stack of checks in his clutch, trying not to stare too long at the strings of zeroes when Daniel hands each one over for safekeeping.

“I’m cashing out in bills this time,” Daniel whispers in Charles’s ear, pulling him closer as they approach the final stop of the night. “I want to fuck you on top of them. For old time’s sake.” Charles is a little unsteady now, having accepted a free Negroni from the friendly American businessman who sat to his left at the last casino. He was playing his role, which meant being gracious. Available. A wide-open possibility for all the hungry eyes that lined the velvet-topped table, eye-catching enough to stop them seeing the true deception in front of their faces— Daniel slipping cards and chips in and out of his hands like it’s second nature, Charles turning his charm off like a tap when they’re done, leaving his admirers behind and delivering himself into Daniel’s waiting hands when they meet up outside.

Walking through London with duffel bags full of cash would be stupid, but Charles doesn’t care. They’re on top of the fucking world right now. They’ve played safe, played smart. “You had better win big then.”

“Good thing I’ve got my lucky charm with me.”

Just one more to go. It feels surreal. All Charles can do is laugh.

This casino at least has the decency to be modern-tacky rather than faux-vintage-tacky, which is refreshing after spending the night cooped up in dark wood and leather. The overhead lights shine brightly on the white and stainless steel decor, giving absolutely no indication to the patrons that it’s nearly three in the morning. Charles should be dead on his feet—flirting _does_ take more effort than anyone seems to give it credit for, particularly when the other person is no one special—but the change of scenery and Daniel’s promise make it feel like this could be the second stop of the night, not the last. Maybe this is what luck feels like.

Their routine runs like clockwork now. He finds a suitable table, the one nearest the exit, sits down apologetically, like he’s not exactly sure how this works. He accepts his hand, plays a few safe rounds, and strikes up a pleasant rapport with the few night owls perched around the table. The dealer is wearing a wedding ring, which is perfect. Easier to fluster, less likely to try and pass him his phone number when he leaves the table.

Neither of them have any illusions about Charles’s role here: a charming distraction from Daniel’s dirty play. But playing blackjack every night has honed his already fine skills, and he’s building a tidy margin before Daniel even makes it to the table. They can add his stack to the bills on the bed at the end of the night.

The dealer leers down the front of Charles’s jacket as he takes his bet. “You come here with anyone?”

Charles smiles shyly, even as he’s leaning in. “No, I’m just traveling for business. But that means I can spend the evenings looking for London’s best distractions.”

The dealer fucking _winks_ at that. Charles forces himself to laugh politely instead of rolling his eyes. He had never been than indiscreet when he was on the other side of the table.

His pile of chips ebbs and flows, but Daniel still doesn’t show. Charles looks over his shoulder as discreetly as he can, searching for the sight of dark, unruly curls somewhere between the table games. Nothing. The dealer is getting impatient, trying to catch his attention. “Another hand, sir?”

Where the _fuck_ is Daniel? He should be sidling up to the table with a full glass of tonic, calling the dealer all sorts of ridiculous pet names, and assessing his cards with one eye closed to really sell the act. As much as Charles hates to admit it, the empty seat at the other end of the table leaves him feeling like his back’s exposed. He gets up from the table with a start, grabbing his clutch. “I’ll be right back,” he assures the dealer, leaving his chips as a promise.

The beads on the bag dig into his fingers as he approaches the bathrooms. Once he’s safely locked in a stall he can check his phone and see if there’s any word from Daniel, any missed call to let him know that this operation is off. What was it that threw off the plan? A tip that someone was onto them? A change in security, an unwelcome, familiar face? They’ve made enough, they don’t really _need_ to do this place. Charles just wants to know that they can meet up on the street and escape the reach of the casino lights before anyone catches on to what they’ve done.

He doesn’t make it to the mirrored bathroom door. A figure wearing a dark suit and an earpiece steps in front of him so quickly Charles almost impales his foot with the point of his heel. “Come with me,” the man says, with an air of unquestioned authority. Questioning seems like a good way to make this— whatever this is—worse than it already is.

Charles swallows around the lump of ice in his throat and puts on his best demure smile. “Of course. Lead the way.”

The man leads them through an unassuming door and into a hallway that looks as drab and common as the pit looked _contemporary._ He doesn’t say anything, just walks with his eyes straight ahead, satisfied that Charles isn’t stupid enough to try and run.

Charles has no clue what exactly has happened but he knows that they’re fucked. _He’s_ fucked. Daniel could be bleeding behind one of the plain office doors lining the hallway. He could also be somewhere outside, yelling down the phone to try and warn Charles about this very danger, but Charles wouldn’t know. The security guy has his bag clutched in one meaty hand, threatening to crush both his phone and the checks. Conning the house is all about maintaining confidence and control, even in the face of random odds. This is not a situation they planned for.

“Is this how you treat all the special guests?” Charles asks, sweet as he can through bared teeth. The man doesn’t even acknowledge that he’s spoken.

They stop outside one of the doors. The plaque on the wall simply says _Management._ At least it’s not a dark, unsurveilled alley. No one loses any teeth in the _manager’s office,_ right?

The security guard gestures for him to enter, so he does. It’s dim inside, smokey too. Cigar smoke— the calling card of men trying to prove something in the least subtle way possible. Utterly predictable for whoever it is manages a tacky modern casino in central London.

“Sit down, please,” says the man behind the desk. He’s peering at something on his laptop, frowning. The cold light of the screen does nothing to flatter the rough lines in his face, his two day stubble, or his unfortunate teeth.

Charles sits, making a show out of crossing his legs for good measure. The security guard closes the office door behind him, standing in the doorway with Charles’s bag still smothered in one hand.

“Are you going to tell me what this is about? I left some very valuable chips on one of your tables.” Charles glances around the room, hoping to look as unbothered as possible. The walls are cluttered with memorabilia, but a cluster of more official-looking documents hang behind the desk.

_Personal management license: Christian Horner._  
_Gambling operations license: Christian Horner._  
_Personal functional license: Christian Horner._

An old friend, then. Maybe Daniel is lucky to be missing this particular meeting, wherever he is.

“You’ve been busy this evening,” Christian muses, turning the laptop around to face Charles. The screen is a veritable collage of grainy security camera stills, Charles and Daniel at different London casinos, cleaning up while playing at perfect strangers. “It’s a small world, you know. Word gets around fast. You’re lucky none of these places caught you in the act, they wouldn’t be as nice as I am.”

“Looks like there are a few more places that might also like to know what’s been going on this evening,” the security guard says, clearly pleased with himself. He’s got Charles’s bag open, examining their scribbled list of casinos. “You could have half the city on your tail by tomorrow morning.”

Charles sits up a little straighter in his chair. He spent years learning to read a bluff and becoming unreadable himself. These two are crowing like they’ve got a royal flush, but if they really did they wouldn’t be having a conversation this civilized. They don’t need to see him sweat. “You know Daniel, don’t you?”

Christian laughs, a bitter laugh, and reaches for the cigar that’s smouldering in a crystal ashtray. “I had the unfortunate pleasure of making his acquaintance, yes. Somehow he never quite made employee of the month.”

Daniel used to work _here?_ It’s hard to imagine Daniel having been legit at some point, but something about the shameless atmosphere of the place suits him.

Christian gnaws on the end of the cigar before leaning back in his chair. “You know, you seem like a nice enough guy, I won’t draw this out for you. Daniel has something very valuable to me. A car— ‘73 Firebird. I know you know where it is.” Christian smiles in a greasy way, like they’ve both agreed Daniel deserves what’s coming to him. It makes Charles bristle.

“You should have tried harder not to lose it,” Charles says. It’s clearly the wrong answer, Christian’s face going dark and sour. A different approach then. “Why don’t you just ask Daniel?”

“I’d prefer if he didn’t know I was coming.” Christian clips the words with simmering rage. Charles isn’t sure whether to be disturbed or relieved. They don’t have their hands on Daniel yet, but they will.

“And why should I tell you?”

“Because the police may want you, but the casinos want you more. I know who I would be more worried about, if I were in your shoes.”

Charles scoffs a little, despite himself. “And you’re able to call them off? You’ll all just let me go home?”

“I could help you work something out. I just want the car.”

“And Daniel?”

“Are you really that worried about him? That’s sweet.” Christian crushes the end of the cigar into the ashtray, then leans forward across the desk. “I’ll tell you something about Daniel. I gave him everything he needed to get his start, everything. Then he cheated me and disappeared without even blinking. Smiled to my face the whole time. You’re pretty and all, but do you really think that’s going to protect you? Once you’re done here and you cash those checks?”

The security guard has the checks out of the clutch now as well, licking his thumb as he flips through each one.

“You’re going to smudge the ink,” Charles bites out. The man doesn’t look up.

Christian sighs. “Here, I’ll sweeten the deal for you. If you tell me where Daniel is, then this conversation never happened. You and I can be complete strangers. You fuck off to whatever corner of France you came from and take that money Daniel won you. I’ve heard how you two did tonight. You could live for a couple of years off that alone.”

Charles tastes bile at the suggestion that Daniel has been doing anything _for_ him. As though Charles wouldn’t have bolted at the first whiff of submission. This had been a partnership, a team of equals. He reminds himself of it and tries not to imagine Daniel snatching this guy’s car keys with a palmed ace and driving off into the sunset. He sets his jaw and stares Christian down. “And if I don’t tell you?”

Christian tilts his head towards the security guard. “Life is a little less fun when you’re broke, alone, and on the run, don’t you think? When you don’t have your good looks to fall back on any more?”

“I think so, boss.”

“Who said I would be alone?” Charles snaps. He can feel his control over the situation slipping through his fingers like cheap playing cards.

Christian steeples his fingers in front of him, like he’s about to explain something very simple to a fussy child. “A little cheating can be tolerated. We wouldn’t want to cause an international incident. No, you can go, but you need to understand, this is a tight-knit world. We don’t take kindly to betrayal from one of our own.”

The velvet of Charles’s jacket is sticking a bit to his skin now, the beginnings of a cold sweat. “It’s not just about a car for you then.”

“And it’s clearly not just about the money for you. It’s a shame— it would be easier for you if it was.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for your patience on this one! obviously the last few months have been a roller coaster for everyone, but now i'm back to working on this.
> 
> this is the penultimate chapter! hopefully, the final installment won't take another three months to write.


	5. Chapter 5

They sit in tense, claustrophobic silence. Christian is clearly waiting for Charles to break somehow, to finally put his own self-preservation above whatever stale interpersonal drama he’s found himself in the middle of. Christian stares at him with a slightly disgusted look, as though Charles’s refusal to give Daniel up is some kind of personal offense.

There’s an almost comical undertone to it all. What if Charles doesn’t say anything? Is Christian really prepared to turn this into some kind of hostage negotiation? He’s a middle manager with a grudge, not the kind of person who sends bits of fingers and ears in the mail.

The standoff is only broken by someone knocking at the door, loud and sharp enough to draw everyone’s attention. It’s another security guard, as tall and broad and blandly meaty as the one standing inside. He looks between Charles and Christian, clearly uneager to interrupt with bad news. “No signs of Ricciardo in the building or nearby. Looks like he’s bolted.”

Christian nods, then looks back at Charles with an unnerving smile that reads more hungry than satisfied. “Cowardice, a lovely trait to have in a partner, isn’t it?”

It would be easy for Daniel to run. Charles wills himself to breathe through his nose, to remain as still and visually unrattled as possible. But all he can think about is that backpack, heavy with stacks of ill-gotten euros, the one he threw into the corner of his basement bedroom so he didn’t have to look at it. How he repeated _The house always wins_ to himself until he made himself believe it. How he put the money before everything else and learned to live with himself. “I can’t blame anyone for surviving.” It comes out quiet and brittle. He’s not fooling anyone.

If Daniel has really run off without him, can Charles really blame him? The security guard is still gripping the checks like they aren’t worth triple what he makes in a year. With enough massaging of your morals, enough money can make any betrayal worthwhile. And Lord knows Daniel can keep making money, somewhere far away from here. Everything’s in his name, and this has always been his operation, deep down. It’s a circus he can take anywhere, with anyone. As long as Charles doesn’t set this group of sneering British vultures on Daniel’s tail, he’ll be fine.

Every bit of sanity that Charles has accumulated over the years screams at him to cut his losses and skulk back along the Riviera, wait until the lure of the stashed money overwhelms the guilt and work like hell to forget Daniel again. It might be harder than last time, but the paycheck will be better, too.

Charles agreed to a partnership, not self-sacrifice. He knows Daniel’s address off the top of his head. He knows where Daniel parks that damn car, the one they drove up and down the country until Charles could catalogue all the dings in the interior like the scars and freckles on Daniel’s back. He should just say it. Speaking would be a welcome distraction from wondering where Daniel’s off to now, and if he’ll miss Charles when he goes.

Why is it so damn hard? He sits, frozen and silent, in the sticky leather chair in front of Christian’s desk. As blank and unresponsive as a department store mannequin. 

This crowd is so rude. So _indelicate_. They don’t deserve to put a trophy like Daniel up on the wall between the old cricket posters and the dartboard. They simply don’t have the taste.

No, if Daniel is running off, then Charles will be the one to mount his head on the walls of his pretty Monaco apartment, between the gilt mirror and the ocean view. Daniel shouldn’t expect to be able to sidle back up at the bar at the Fairmont again, no way. Daniel forgave being betrayed, but Charles would rather eat tacks. He’ll make sure Daniel doesn’t miss him for long.

Christian is sneering at him again, like that will somehow make him talk. Does this man think he’s _weak?_ Charles crosses his arms over his chest, pouting in the way he knows will make Christian’s blood boil. Good. He can be a brick wall. He can wait these men out. Anger requires action, but he can be patient. “So are we going to wait here all night? If you’re going to hit me you might as well start, I’m getting bored.”

The security guard stands to attention, no longer slouching against the wall, but he’s cut off by a loud buzzing. It’s Charles’s cell phone, still stashed in the clutch in the man’s hands. He looks at it a bit stupidly, like he’s never seen a phone call before. Only one person has this number.

“Can I answer that?” Charles asks Christian, barely sparing the security guard a glance. He tries not to sound too eager, but feels like he’s had the air knocked out of him. Christian doesn’t reply, just waves the man over and holds out his hand for the phone. Charles doesn’t strain his head to get a glimpse of the caller ID. If he moves, Christian will see that he’s shaking.

You don’t typically place a goodbye call before you run off with someone’s heart and money.

“Hello, Daniel,” Christian says, dripping with slimy charm. “I’m happy to finally get a hold of you, it’s been a while. I’ve got your,” he pauses, looks over Charles’s pendant necklace, his tailored silk pants, “arm candy here with me. We were just talking about you.” The voice from the other end is muffled, but it’s still distinctly _Daniel._ Charles’s jaw protests from how hard he’s clenching his teeth. 

“It’s not very gentlemanly to stand up your date now, is it? I could have sworn he was going to cry.” Nobody has seen Charles cry since primary school. He bites his tongue.

Christian rolls his chair back from the table a little and smiles at the ceiling, looking every bit like a satisfied cat, a mid-tier predator who’s finally gotten his dinner. “You could always come collect him. You and I have so much to catch up on.”

Christian doesn’t stop smiling. Charles wants to smack the phone out of his hand. “Alright, and bring the damn car. You know the one. I’ll have someone meet you by the employee entrance.” Christian ends the call and tosses Charles’s phone off to the side. “Alright, you’ve been very _stoic,_ but it looks like Daniel’s got less of a survival instinct than we both thought. Shame, he must be going soft in his old age.”

Maybe he just decided it was worth being loyal to the right person— that being a bastard is all well and good only if you’re okay with working alone. Christian isn’t looking at the phone screen, still lit up with a wall of long, unanswered texts.

Daniel can’t be that far away— it’s only a few minutes before there’s another knock on the door, some whispering between the casino guys, some significant looks exchanged between them and Christian. Christian sits back up straight in his chair, all business again. Daniel did always know how to make an entrance.

There’s some shuffling, some doors opening and closing somewhere far down the hallway, but the stony silence remains. Charles wants to conjure a witty retort, something to make it clear how little all of this affects him, but he draws a blank. He just stares out the sliver of open air in the cracked doorway and waits.

It has to be a trick of the light, but Daniel looks different, his perpetual shine somehow rubbed off in the elapsed hour since Charles last saw him. Another rough casino employee hustles him inside by the arm, like this is really some kind of mob operation and not a spat about stolen cars, bruised egos, and loyalty to a (fairly lame) organization. Daniel looks over at Charles, once, and the open concern in his eyes threatens to crack the glossy barrier Charles has been building. Charles’s fingers itch with the desire to touch him, to affirm that he’s _here,_ not fled to some gambler’s paradise across the ocean.

However, Daniel is a professional card player, in a manner of speaking at least. In a second that damn poker face is back again. It’s taken this long but Charles can spot the mask now, can trace the razor-thin line between the man Daniel is the and the man he pretends to be. Daniel shrugs off the hand on his arm like he would a housefly. “It’s a bit much, isn’t it? It’s been a few years, but I didn’t forget where your office was.”

“You’ll forgive me if I wanted to make doubly sure you didn’t get anywhere near our money,” Christian replies. They really could be old friends, the way they talk to each other. “I’ll be honest, I wrote off ever seeing you again. You must be really stupid to try and come back and pull this kind of shit in London.”

“Some people might call it ballsy.”

“Well, it’s not like you were never stupid or ballsy before. You haven’t changed a bit. You brought the car?”

Daniel knits his eyebrows and cocks his head. “Oh I was supposed to bring the—” The guy who hauled him in slaps him hard across the jaw, a vicious, stinging sound that silences the room. It dislodges Daniel’s mask for a second. He blinks hard. Charles digs his nails into the armrests of the chair to stop himself clawing at the goon’s squat, cruel face. These guys can only hurt them with what they give away.

Daniel rubs the red spot on his face and pulls himself back up to his full height. Even posturing like this, he doesn’t have the same suave brilliance that Charles remembers from that first night in the Casino de Monte-Carlo. “Jesus, you guys really lost your sense of humor since I left, huh? Could have given me a second. Here.” He digs around in his pocket until he pulls out the car keys, the ones with the golden Firebird keychain. In Charles’s mind they’re warm, like the time he snatched them from Daniel’s palm and drove them through a grassy bit of countryside, whooping out the open window even as Daniel told him to slow down. Daniel tosses them over. They land on Christian’s desk with a dull thud. “If that’s all you wanted, you could have just asked.”

“You’ve been a very busy boy, Daniel. How many years has it been? Don’t you think I’m owed some interest?”

“Oh come on, this is ridiculous,” Charles can’t stop himself snapping. The look on Christian’s face is so smug, but he doesn’t know Daniel at all— it’s been _years_ , and the sheer presumption that Daniel is some kind of perpetual underling makes bile rise in his throat on Daniel’s behalf.

“It’s alright,” Daniel says, but he sounds like he’s soothing a skittish horse. He’s already been kicked by Charles once. Does he think it will happen again? The thought is a pit in Charles’s stomach.

Christian sits silently and lets Daniel guess how much interest he thinks he’s owed. Slow, unsure, Daniel pulls his wallet out of his pocket and sets it on the desk. He doesn’t look at Christian. He looks at Charles, with a small, private smile that’s not strong enough to carry them both out of here.

Christian eyes the wallet. “Not enough.”

“What the hell do you want from me?”

“More. You’re always looking out for yourself. I want to see what it’s like when you give up what matters.”

Charles stands up abruptly, pushing the chair back with enough force to make it screech on the floor. He can’t hide his shaking any more, but now it’s rage as much as it is fear. “Here, you want interest?” He unfastens his earrings with unsteady fingers and tosses them onto Christian’s desk. “Diamonds. And these.” He pulls off his rings one by one, his bracelet, lets them fall onto the wood so Christian can hear their weight. “Or do you just want what he has? Want him to beg? Pathetic. If this is really about money, you’d name a fucking price.”

At least Christian isn’t gloating any more. His eyes have darkened to hard flint. “Fine. All of it.”

“Pardon?”

“You heard me. I need to be sure you two won’t gallavant off to fuck me over some other day. You’re going to have to crawl back to wherever faithless bastards are born and _stay there_.”

Daniel takes a step closer. He’s tense like a cornered animal now, the last-ditch improvisational energy rolling off him in unfamiliar waves. “So we can just get the same treatment from all the other places in town looking to collect from me? No thanks, I’m not stupid.”

Christian looks unimpressed. “This isn’t really a negotiation.”

They both look like they would rather burn the casino down around them than hand the other this final win. One of them has to do something, say something “No one has to know we were ever here— like you offered me. Even just a headstart. You save face with your little friends, and we’ll be gone.”

“And you’ll hand over your accounts? You’ll just get out of town and _stay gone?_ ” His incredulity is maddening. He really thinks Charles is asking for a losing deal. “Fine.”

Daniel’s frozen, doesn’t say a word. There’s a sketchy offshore account in Daniel’s name with enough zeroes to make it hurt. Charles memorized the account numbers the first time he saw them— necessary collateral. The digits roll around his head like lead shot.

He grabs a pen and a scrap of paper from the desk. Daniel doesn’t argue, doesn’t ask questions— he must understand. He just watches. The number Charles scrawls on the page puts a shotgun blast through whatever hazy future they had been imagining.

Who are they without the money, without the promise of more? Without the nights in the casinos and in the hotels, in the planes and on the road, always moving, always counting on something more material than love to keep them waking up in the same bed together and doing it all over again? Charles doesn’t know but when he finishes writing he looks up at Daniel next to him all he can see is Daniel’s face on the opposite pillow, outlined by morning light. He’ll take the loss, he’ll take it a thousand more times. If they’ve got beds wherever faithless bastards come from, then Charles wants to wake up next to him.

It’s just past three in the morning when they’re shoved out of the back door of the casino. The guard throws Charles’s clutch into a greasy puddle halfway down the alley with a derisive laugh, then shuts the door behind them. It’s cold and dark and the alley smells like piss and Charles grabs Daniel’s hand and heads towards the street without stooping to pick up the bag. There’s nothing worth keeping, anyway. Christian fed the checks to his bargain-bin paper shredder one by one, just before he drained the account.

He stops short, before they walk out under the harsh streetlights. It’s easier, somehow, to talk in the dark. It feels like being on the road, like sitting side by side in that stolen car, when they would push the speed limit and potential witnesses slipped away in the other lanes.

“I’m sorry—”

“I tried to call you—”

“You could have left—”

“Come off it, you—” Charles doesn’t let Daniel have his choice of insult or pet name. He kisses him instead, the kind of kiss that says _I was afraid,_ the most damning confession there is. Sure, they’re missing things now: money, a pair of diamond earrings, and a plan. But Daniel could have walked away with everything and a piece of Charles, too.

They’re _so_ fucked, but it hasn’t quite sunk it yet just how fucked they are. The thrill of the escape, of Daniel warm and real under his hands and mouth, Daniel smiling into the kiss as Charles backs him up against the filthy wall, it’s overwhelming, it’s everything, and goddamn but they’ve earned this, one minute before the end of the world, Daniel kissing him like he’s spotted the meteor in the sky.

But Charles can’t forget that he knows something Daniel doesn’t, that he’s kept one more thing for his own. If they’re doing this—and they are doing this—then it’s time to put all cards on the table. Charles presses his body up against Daniel’s. Daniel must be able to feel his own heat through the silk shirt, but the real reveal is drawing Daniel’s hand up his thigh and— yeah, there it is. Daniel makes a small, surprised noise, so sweet and pure it almost feels like it has no business coming out of his mouth, the way he’s been kissing Charles. He pulls away so he can watch as he pulls the tightly folded wad of £100 notes out of the waist of Charles’s underwear. It was meant to be another kind of surprise altogether, whenever they made it back to Daniel’s apartment. Charles thinks Daniel probably likes it even more this way. 

He can’t stop himself tucking his face into the side of Daniel’s neck, breathless with relief and adrenaline watching Daniel through the bills. When he speaks, he’s laughing. “It’s not much, I’m not sure it’ll even get us tickets anywhere.”

“It’s cheaper one-way,” Daniel says, but he’s laughing too. For once they didn’t have to make their own luck— it’s found them instead.

⁂

“You see, magic is all about lying—and I know, your mother always told you not to lie—but this show would be less fun for both of us if I didn’t. Have you ever heard the secret behind a magic trick? It’s never as satisfying as you hoped it would be.”

Daniel picks up a deck of cards and starts shuffling them in smooth, practiced motions.

“The funny thing about the lie is that it can’t be perfect. No, if it’s too perfect then you know there’s only one way for it to work. So where does that leave us? I’m going to lie to you, and you’re going to know I’m lying, but it works because there’s a bit of you that hopes I’m not— that maybe magic is real, and that’s the real secret. Are you with me, ladies and gentlemen?”

The audience is a little more alive than usual, clapping with more enthusiasm than the typical Sunday matinee.

“Good, then I’ll introduce my assistant. He’s here to distract you. Charles, won’t you come up on stage and give us a twirl?”

The stage lights are always blinding when he first walks out, even with his eyes guarded by a thick coat of mascara. The beads on his dress swish when he walks and fly up when he spins. The audience claps for that, too. They clap for the illusion, for the lack of it, for the desire to be tricked and the desire to believe. They clap for the beautiful liars.

Retirement isn’t so different from what they’ve always done. There are fewer hotels, less running, less champagne, sure. But there’s still waking up in the middle of the afternoon after a late-night show, Daniel half-asleep with smudges of Charles’s makeup on his face. They’ve got a low-capacity theater on the wrong end of town but it’s a bigger stage than they ever had before. Charles watches Daniel pull off the same tricks night after night with ridiculous swagger and he has to stop himself defiling their dressing room after every show.

Charles catches Daniel’s eye as he takes the deck from his palm, right on cue. The cards are stacked _just so._ Daniel winks at him, blows a kiss. There’s no lie here, not between them. Charles winks back before turning to the audience, offering the deck like a prize to be won.

“Now, can I have a volunteer to choose a card?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you SO MUCH to everyone who stuck with this fic through the long, long breaks between chapters (and the one time I declared it dead lmao). This universe has been so much fun to write, I hope you enjoyed the ride!
> 
> Mega super thanks to babypapaya -- sorry I didn't tell you I was stealing your idea for the end, but it was so so perfect and almost singlehandedly inspired me to write this sequel. Big thanks to everyone in rda who listened to me complain about this since February and cheerleaded every chapter <3
> 
> i would love to hear any feedback you guys have <3 as always, i'm on tumblr as redpaint.

**Author's Note:**

> [ _I can teach you how to play the rules / When you bend ‘em then you really can’t lose_ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=2g_nk82Sqbs&feature=emb_title)
> 
> My first ever chaptered fic, oh boy. HUGE shout out to the people who speculated about where these two would end up post-risk of ruin. Y'all successfully managed to convince me that this 'verse had way more to give!
> 
> yell at me to keep working on this on [tumblr](https://www.redpaint.tumblr.com)


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